Should I put swapfile on other disk?

[qwertycopter]

well id better put on my data movin' gloves 😛

😀 I use a lasso!

 

[cdonato]

The swap file will be used by some proggies no matter how much ram. You'll get some benefit from keeping it on a different drive than the os is on. The speed difference will cost you some of the benefit but not all. Def go for the 2 drive config.

 

[Rhinofart]

separate partition won't do anything for you except help a little with defragmentation. For best speed put it on a 2nd drive preferably on a different channel. I for one have always been a fan of the 1.5x system RAM. So my swap file is on a 2nd HD and is 3 Gig in size. (2 Gig system RAM)

 

[pscowboy]

You guys get a little too pompous for yourselves.

The parameters that you are quoting - 1.5 x memory, were established in the W95 & 98 days when comps were getting by with 64-128 mb of ram.

Now with machines having 1 and 2 gigs of memory running XP , the pagefile is rarely used. It needs a little during boot, and again during downloads. Virtually all apps today use all memory for their temp storage.

For all of your sakes, check out Alex Nichols' article, "Virtual Memory in Windows XP" at aumha.org. A website where a few MS engineers contribute. Alex explodes the following two myths:
1. The file should be a fixed size.
2. The file should be 1.5, or even 2.5, times real memory.

Get over yourselves, before you slam somebody who really knows better than you. Guys like you are why I stopped posting.

 

[Rhinofart]

Hmm that would be interesting to find out. I have never tried a removable drive like that. Not quite sure where in the boot process the OS looks for and initializes the swap file. The USB would have to be enumerated before the swapfile initialized. Interesting query. Anyone know the answer to this?

 

[gipctech1974]

Yeah ok pal , why don't you quit reading online about it and actually do it for a living like myself someone who speaks to Microsoft several times a week...........you have been misinformed by someone.....get over it !

 

[Hameedo]

2. The file should be 1.5, or even 2.5, times real memory.

Good ! .. then if you have a 1.0GB of RAM (REAL MEMORY ) you have to set it to 1.5GB .. you must have mixed it up !

Any way , I have two XPs .. one on and IDE 80GB HD .. the pagefiles are on another SATA 120GB HD .

the other XP is on the SATA 120GB HD .. and pagefiles are on the same drive .. however , booting from the SATA drive is faster than the IDE one .. but loading games are faster on the IDE 80GB drive !

 

[CompTIA_Rep]

I just moved my page file over to a high speed flash drive... works well. I also installed a few games on to it to reduce hard drive usage while playing... and again.. works great!

Life Time warranty so I will not have to worry about exceeding the read writes on the 4gb flash.

 

[bberson]

You guys get a little too pompous for yourselves. [...] Get over yourselves, before you slam somebody who really knows better than you. Guys like you are why I stopped posting.

Instead of you two geniuses bickering back and forth trying to out-qualify each other with your Internet -learned rhetoric and empirical evidence, maybe you both need to step back for a second and read between the lines...

I too am an enterprise MS customer, and we get similar advice for our 2000 Server and our 2003 systems via the MS TAMs and Premiere techs, but what's good for servers may not be necessary for workstations. At the same time it's presumptuous to say that nobody's workstation might actually need server -type memory settings, particularly with things like VMware and Virtual Server becoming so popular.

And that article on aumha.org fails to describe why the issue of swap file fragmentation should be dismissed. Hmmm, even MS MVPs can f up.

Best idea is to learn how VM is used, assigned and managed, balance that with your available storage, understand why certain recommendations are made (separate spindles for performance, multiple to allow for crash dump and/or extensible VM, etc.), and decide for yourself what's best. Parroting rhetoric achieves nothing.

-Brad

 

[pscowboy]

I definitely don't want to get into a rhetoric war with anyone, and shouldn't have.

I proffered my post to someone who was asking a question concerning a workstation, and gave him advice based on my experience - actual working life (I am 20 years a techie), empirical, and Internet research.

Brad is right, this forum is no place for a pissing contest.

I apologize for the outburst.